Chullu (Roman city)

Chullu on the map of Roman Numidia, Atlas Antiquus, H. Kiepert, 1869


Chullu was a Roman city in the coast of Romano-berber Africa, near Rusicade and Saint Augustine's Hippo Regius. Actually it is called Collo in modern eastern Algeria.

History

The Phoenician Chullu in 430 BCE was founded as a commercial port. The Numidian king Bocchus delivered his son Jugurtha to the Romans using this port. According to Pliny it was the second city in ancient Numidia after Cirta.[1]

Under Caesar and Augustus it was a port colony, then a Romano-berber municipality that depended on what Pliny calls the first century roman colonia "Cirta Sittianorum",[2] together with Rusicade, Milevum and Cuicul in what was an autonomous territory of the new province Africa Nova.

In Antoninus Pius times (around 138 AD) Chullu was famous for its dyeing, its purple fabrics, leathers and timber: it was the main port of the important city Constantine. Then it was called by Ptolemy "Kollops Magnus": from it Chullu will draw its actual name of Collo. The city was partially razed in 430 AD by the Vandals, but even by an earthquake. The Byzantine reconquest brought some improvements, like a Christian church near the old port.[3]

Reduced to a small village by the Arab conquests in the late seventh century, during the Middle Ages the local population was a mix of Arab and of Kabyle berbers organized in independent tribes.

Notes

  1. ↑ Joseph Parres, Monographie sur Collo, ancienne Chullu municipium des Romains, Alger, 1933.
  2. ↑ Plinius the Elder, Historia naturalis, V, 22
  3. ↑ Christian Church remains

Bibliography

See also